Biographical History: Euvester Simpson attended
Tougaloo College and Millsaps College and was a civil rights activist in
Mississippi with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). She
later worked as a legal secretary, program administrator and business
owner.

Summary: Euvester Simpson discusses her childhood in
Itta Bena, Mississippi, and she describes her parents' decision to send her to
Racine, Wisconsin, to attend high school because they were fed up with
segregated public schools in Mississippi. For her last year of high school,
Simpson returned to Mississippi, and she became active in the Civil Rights
Movement. She describes attending a citizenship school in Charleston, South
Carolina, going to mass meetings, and being arrested with a group of women,
including Fannie Lou Hamer. She also discusses her involvement in the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Council of Federated
Organizations, and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Simpson ends the
interview by discussing the legacy of the movement.

Biographical History: Matilda Julia Burns was a
school teacher and civil rights activist in Mississippi.

Summary: Julia Matilda Burns describes her
experience in segregated schools in Humphreys County, Mississippi, where she
grew up. After becoming a teacher at Marshall High School in Belzoni,
Mississippi, she began to take notice of the Civil Rights Movement, but her
involvement was limited because she did not want to lose her job. Burns
describes protests by whites against school desegregation in Tchula,
Mississippi, and her experiences as a teacher in Tchula. She also discusses her
successful election for a position on the school board and the work she
accomplished during her tenure.

Biographical History: Rosie Head Howze was a civil
rights activist in Mississippi. She worked in many different roles providing
community services for children.

Summary: Rosie Head describes her early life in
Greenwood, Mississippi, where her family lived and worked on a plantation. She
discusses how her parents faced racial discrimination in their work and how
they were cheated by the plantation owner and then blacklisted. In 1964, Head
joined the Civil Rights Movement in Tchula, Mississippi, where her family had
relocated. Head recounts the various ways she was involved in the movement:
registering voters, working with Freedom Summer volunteers, helping to
establish the Child Development Group of Mississippi, and campaigning for black
candidates for political office.

Biographical History: The Honorable Robert G. Clark,
Jr., is one of the many African American politicians who were elected to state
legislatures following the Voting Rights Act of 1964. He was the first black
representative elected to the Mississippi State House since the late 19th
century, the first African American to serve as a committee chair in the
Mississippi House and in 2004, the became the first African American to have a
Mississippi state building named in his honor. He served as Speaker Pro Tempore
from 1992 to 2003, when he retired as the longest serving representative.

Summary: Robert G. Clark, Jr., describes the early
life experiences that led up to his successful campaign for political office in
the Mississippi Legislature, where he became the first African American elected
since Reconstruction. He discusses his childhood in Pickens, Mississippi, and
he describes the family farm that he now owns, his relationship to his family,
and the expectations that they had of him to receive an education. Clark
discusses his career as an educator, and he describes how the Civil Rights
Movement influenced him. After a failed campaign for school superintendent he
volunteered to run for state office. Clark describes his experiences in the
Mississippi Legislature, focusing on how he helped to pass the Education Reform
Act.

Biographical History: Dr. Jack Geiger became active
in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s. He helped black medical students
obtain admission to the University of Chicago. He also established the first
Office of Economic Opportunity health centers in Mound Bayou and Boston.

Summary: Dr. Jack Geiger discusses his early life
experiences and how he came to be a leading figure in the Medical Committee for
Human Rights. He describes his childhood in New York City, where he found a
mentor in actor Canada Lee, his college experience at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, and his time as a U.S. Merchant Marine. He discusses his
involvement in the Commission for Racial Equality and the American Veterans
Committee in Chicago during the late 1940s. While attending medical school at
Case Western Reserve University, Geiger's interest in community-centered health
grew, especially after a trip to South Africa. He eventually volunteered as a
medical professional in Mississippi, where he helped to establish the
Tufts-Delta Health Center in 1965.

Biographical History: Ben Caldwell was a Vietnam
veteran, artist and filmmaker. He was a member of the L.A. Rebellion and the
founder of the KAOS Network, a community arts center, in Los Angeles,
California.

Summary: Ben Caldwell shares his family's history in
the Southwest and his childhood experience in New Mexico. Caldwell describes
his military service during the Vietnam War and how his experiences made him
reflect on racial prejudices in the United States. He began studying art, and
he eventually moved to Los Angeles, where he has been part of a black arts
movement since the 1970s. He discusses the L.A. Rebellion, a collective of
black filmmakers from UCLA, as well as various art projects in which he has
been involved and documentary films he has produced.

Biographical History: Rick Tuttle attended Wesleyan
University and the University of California, Los Angeles, and participated in
the Freedom Rides of 1961. He helped found the California Federation of Young
Democrats and later became the Los Angeles City Controller and a lecturer at
the School of Public Policy at UCLA.

Summary: Rick Tuttle describes his family background
and when he first became aware of the sit-in movement and the Freedom Rides
when he was a student at Wesleyan University. As a graduate student at the
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), he was recruited to join the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1963 and went to Greenwood,
Mississippi, to work on voter registration drives. He also briefly spied on
white supremacist and Ku Klux Klan meetings. After being driven out of
Mississippi by threats, he joined the Chatham County Crusade for Voters in
Savannah, Georgia. Tuttle describes being arrested in Savannah for disturbing
the peace and the subsequent trial. Tuttle discusses the work he did after
leaving the Movement: as the comptroller in Los Angeles he helped to bring an
end to segregation at private clubs and participated in the anti-apartheid
movement.

Biographical History: Joan Trumpauer Mulholland
attended Duke University and Tougaloo College. She joined the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)and participated in the Freedom Rides
of 1961. She later worked at the Smithsonian Institution, at the Department of
Commerce, and the Department of Justice and as a teacher in Arlington,
Virginia.

Summary: Joan Trumpauer Mulholland shares how, as a
child in Arlington, Virginia, her awareness of racial disparities grew. As a
student at Duke University, she began participating in the sit-in movement. She
soon moved to Washington, D.C. and joined the Nonviolent Action Group (NAG),
which led her to participate in the Freedom Rides of 1961. She describes in
detail serving time at Mississippi State Penitentiary (Parchman Farm) with
other civil rights activists. Mulholland also discusses attending Tougaloo
College and her involvement in the Jackson sit-in movement.

Biographical History: Martha Prescod Norman Noonan
grew up in Rhode Island and attended the University of Michigan. She was a
fundraiser and a field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC). She later worked as a community organizer in Baltimore,
Maryland.

Summary: Martha Prescod Norman Noonan describes her
childhood in Providence, Rhode Island, and being one of the few black families
in the neighborhood. Her parents urged her to attend the University of
Michigan, where she joined Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and learned
about the Civil Rights Movement in the South. She eventually made her way to
Albany, Georgia, where she worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee. She also worked in the Movement in Mississippi and later in Alabama.
Noonan describes the March on Washington, her perception of Mississippi Freedom
Summer, and the early iterations of Black Power.

Biographical History: Dr. Cleveland Sellers was a
civil rights activist with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
and was arrested after the Orangeburg Massacre in 1968. He later became a
professor of African American studies at the University of South Carolina and
president of Voorhees College.

Summary: Cleveland Sellers shares memories of
growing up in Denmark, South Carolina, especially the influence of Voorhees
College in the community. He organized a Youth Chapter of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Denmark, and he
describes the group's activities. He discusses his first impressions of Howard
University, where he joined the Nonviolent Action Group (NAG). He shares
memories of the March on Washington and the role of students in organizing it,
his involvement in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and
his role in the Mississippi Freedom Project. He also describes the goals of the
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and the tensions that developed within
SNCC in the late 1960s.

Biographical History: Willy Siegel Leventhal
attended the University of California, Los Angeles and worked for the Summer
Community Organization and Political Education (SCOPE) and the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). He later became a special education
teacher and baseball coach and worked on several political campaigns.

Summary: Willy Siegel Leventhal discusses his
childhood in California, his experiences at the University of California, Los
Angeles (UCLA) in the 1960s, and his involvement in the Summer Community
Organization and Political Education Project (SCOPE). Leventhal describes what
it was like to be a Jewish child in a mostly Catholic community and how his
childhood experiences informed his later activism and identity. Baseball was
especially important to him, as he witnessed the first Jewish and African
American ballplayers desegregate the Major Leagues. Leventhal became active in
SCOPE during his first year at UCLA, after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., visited
campus to recruit students. Leventhal describes the SCOPE training in Atlanta,
and he shares his memories of living and working in Macon and Americus,
Georgia.

Biographical History: Gloria Claudette Collins
Grinnell grew up in California and attended Virginia Union University. She
participated in sit-ins in Richmond, Virginia, and later became a teacher in
Los Angeles, California.

Summary: Gloria Claudette Grinnell recounts her
participation in the sit-in movement in Richmond, Virginia, when she was a
student at Virginia Union University. She describes her family's history on the
East Coast and explains how she and her mother ended up in San Francisco. She
discusses her decision to move from California to attend Virginia Union. She
describes the sit-in movement that she joined in 1960. She discusses returning
to California and her career with the Los Angeles Unified School District.